Why You Do What You Do -- Printout -- TIME 3/30/11 4:33 PM
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Why You Do What You Do -- Printout -- TIME 3/30/11 4:33 PM Back to Article Click to Print Monday, Aug. 01, 1977 Why You Do What You Do The concepts are startling—and disturbing. Conflict between parents and children is biologically inevitable. Children are bora deceitful. All human acts—even saving a stranger from drowning or donating a million dollars to the poor—may be ultimately selfish. Morality and justice, far from being the triumphant product of human progress, evolved from man's animal past, and are securely rooted in the genes. These are some of the teachings of sociobiology, a new and highly controversial scientific discipline that seeks to establish that social behavior—human as well as animal—has a biological basis. Its most striking tenet: human behavior is genetically based, the result of millions of years of evolution. Some sociobiologists go so far as to suggest that there may be human genes for such behavior as conformism, homosexuality and spite. Carried to an extreme, sociobiology holds that all forms of life exist solely to serve the purposes of DNA, the coded master molecule that determines the nature of all organisms and is the stuff of genes. As British Ethologist Richard Dawkins describes the role and drive of the genes, they "swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, manipulating it by remote control. They are in you and me; they created us body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence we are their survival machines." Sociobiologists—whose growing ranks include some 250 biologists, zoologists and social scientists— argue that without consideration of biology, the study of human culture makes no sense. Indeed, sociobiology has significant implications for most areas of human concern—from education to relations between the sexes. Says Harvard Physicist Gerald Holton: "It's a breathtaking ambition . as if Sigmund Freud had set out to subsume all of Darwin, Joyce, Einstein, Whitehead and Lenin." Robert Trivers, a Harvard biologist and leading sociobiology theorist, makes a bold prediction: http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,915181,00.html Page 1 of 11 Why You Do What You Do -- Printout -- TIME 3/30/11 4:33 PM Robert Trivers, a Harvard biologist and leading sociobiology theorist, makes a bold prediction: "Sooner or later, political science, law, economics, psychology, psychiatry and anthropology will all be branches of sociobiology." These and other claims by proponents of sociobiology have made it one of the most inflammatory doctrines ta emerge from the campuses in decades. Since 1975, when Harvard Zoologist Edward Wilson's mammoth 700-page book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis brought the new science to public attention, the controversy has spread beyond Harvard—where it originated—dividing faculty departments and disrupting academic conventions. Angry opponents denounce "soso biology" as reactionary political doctrine disguised as science. Their fear: it may be used to show that some races are inferior, that male dominance over women is natural and that social progress is impossible because of the pull of the genes. By far the most vocal critics have been Marxist and other scholars with political points to make. University of Chicago Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins dismisses sociobiology as "genetic capitalism"—an attempt to defend the current structures of Western society as natural and inevitable. Jerome Schneewind, a philosopher at Manhattan's Hunter College, calls it "mushy metaphor . a souped-up version of Hobbes." Harvard Evolutionary Biologist Richard Lewontin is earthier; he thinks sociobiology is "bullshit." Edward Wilson has been picketed, and at Harvard, the left-wing Committee Against Racism has called sociobiology "dangerously racist." The committee also charged that the new science would give comfort to the supporters of Psychologist Arthur Jensen, a leading proponent of another controversial theory: that racial differences in IQs have a genetic basis. Wilson angrily called that attack "slander," and even Lewontin came to his defense, conceding that "sociobiology is not a racist doctrine." But he added, "Any kind of genetic determinism can and does feed other kinds, including the belief that some races are superior to others." Opponents of sociobiology were heartened this spring when Harvard failed to give tenure to Biologist Trivers, though denying that his work in sociobiology was the reason. It was a surprising move that Trivers interpreted as an invitation to leave the university—which he plans to do. Still he insists: "I don't think they will be successful in stopping me or slowing down the work. It has spread too far, to too many people, and to far too many studies." Indeed, sociobiology is establishing itself as part of the scientific spectrum. In June, for example, academics from around the nation gathered at San Francisco State University for a two-day meeting on the implications of sociobiology. Sociobiologists call their doctrine "the completion of the Darwinian revolution"—the application of classic evolutionary theory and modern studies of genetics to animal behavior. Darwin's theory, now http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,915181,00.html Page 2 of 11 Why You Do What You Do -- Printout -- TIME 3/30/11 4:33 PM classic evolutionary theory and modern studies of genetics to animal behavior. Darwin's theory, now virtually unchallenged in the world of science, holds that all organisms evolve by natural selection— those that are better adapted to the environment survive and reproduce; the rest die out. Thus organisms are constantly perfected by the cruel competition to survive. Sociobiologists believe the behavior that promotes survival of the winners in the evolutionary game is passed on by their genes. Many recent theorists—such as Nobel-prizewinning Ethologist Konrad Lorenz and Scots Biologist V.C. Wynne-Edwards—have focused on the group or species as the primary unit of selection. Darwin wrote that it was the individual organism. But Sociobiologists believe it is the genes themselves that conduct the life-or-death evolutionary struggle. This gene-based view of life is compatible with a finding made independently by researchers in a widely divergent branch of science. Rutgers Biochemist George Pieczenik has discovered patterns in DNA coding that he sees as evidence of selection occurring at the molecular level (TIME, April 4). "What this means," he says, "is that the DNA sequences exist to protect themselves and their own information. It's not the organism that counts. The DNA sequences don't really care if they have to look like a lowly assistant professor or a giraffe." Yet sociobiology did not arise from molecular studies but as an answer to a century-old gap in Darwinian theory: Darwin could not fully explain why some organisms help other members of their species. His theory held that every organism fights for its own survival and chance to reproduce, not that of others. Since altruistic behavior reduces an organism's chances to survive, evolution should be expected to breed it out of all species. Still, some birds risk their lives for the flock by crying out to warn of the presence of a predator—thus chancing attracting the attention of the enemy and being singled out for attack. Dolphins sometimes try to save injured dolphins from drowning. Social insects serve the entire community, some going so far as to give their lives to protect the colony from invaders. Sociobiology tries to resolve the dilemma. Its solution: altruism is actually genetic selfishness. The bird that warns of an approaching hawk is protecting nearby relatives that have many of the same genes it has—thus increasing the chance that some of those genes will survive. Sterile female insects work and give their lives to promote the spread of genes they share with their sisters. Some 20 years ago, British Biologist J.B.S. Haldane anticipated the gene-based view of sociobiology when, tongue in cheek, he announced that he would lay down his life for two brothers or eight cousins. His reasoning: the survival of two full siblings (each with about half of his genes identical to Haldane's) or the group of cousins (each with about one-eighth of his genes the same as Haldane's) made the decision genetically acceptable. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,915181,00.html Page 3 of 11 Why You Do What You Do -- Printout -- TIME 3/30/11 4:33 PM According to sociobiologists, evolution produces organisms that automatically follow this mathematical logic, as if they were computers, totting up the genetic costs or benefits of helping out relatives who bear many of the same genes. If aiding the relatives increases the chances that familial genes will prosper and propagate, the organism will act altruistically—even to the extent of giving up its life, as a parent may, for example, by rushing into a burning house to save a child. Yet in humans, this genetic push is less binding; sociobiologists believe that human social behavior is largely controlled by facultative genes—the ones that can be influenced by environment to change their effects. Thus there is room for cowardly and selfish—as well as unselfish—behavior. British Biologist William Hamilton in 1964 explained how altruism could help an individual spread his genes; he argued that the principle explained the social life of insects. In all ants, bees and wasps, daughters of the queen share an average of three-quarters of their genes (see diagram). Because the daughters are more related to each other than they would be to their own offspring, said Hamilton, it is in their genetic self-interest not to breed but to assist the queen in producing more daughters. Thus the females evolved as sterile workers who cooperate socially for genetically selfish reasons.